Mostly enjoyable cruise with a few technical glitches

Item: Norwegian Getaway
Rating: 4.6
Author: lucrezia31

Norwegian Getaway Cruise Review to Europe - Eastern Mediterranean

lucrezia31

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 14

Overall rating:

4.6 out of 5

Verified Review

7 Night Greek Isles: Santorini Rhodes & Istanbul (Athens Roundtrip)

Sail date: July 28, 2024

Ship: Norwegian Getaway

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 14808

Traveled as: Family (young children)

Reviewed: 3 months ago

Review summary

Overall great trip, but beware technology issues (though a relatively minor blip unlikely to effect most travelers).

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Long lines as expected but we were taken care of in the line with fans, A/Cs, and waters.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

We really enjoyed all of the options available to us, though the children’s stuck mostly to the Garden Café buffet option. The service at moderno churrascaria (The restaurant where they bring you meat on sticks, Yum) And especially at Cagney’s, the steakhouse, was incredible. At the steakhouse, our date night in advertently turned into dinner with younger child and the waiter only insured her cheeseburger was made to her standards, but also brought her a napkin bird he made, and also brought her a slice of bacon because he overheard her asking her Dad for it. 15 Stars for him! Food was delicious everywhere, though have reasonable expectations for the sushi bar, it won’t be Nobu.

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

We loved the slides, rope course, and the salt water pool with the huge number of hot tubs. I do want to know that for a such a large feature ownership, rope course usage is limited, being dictated by time, speed of boat and wind speed, so we were only able to use it once on the seven day voyage, so I’m taking down one star because of that.

Entertainment

5 out of 5

While we didn’t have the opportunity to To attend the magic show or the Broadway act, we LOVED the Howling at the Moon dueling pianos act. Not only was it executed to perfection, all ad libbed, but at least one of the singers is a genius on par with Mozart or Beethoven, having learned a new song from a video he was viewing while the other singer was singing, and, not only was able to deliver on the words, but was also able to play the melody to perfection.

Children's Programs

4 out of 5

My teenager loved the entourage program, although it is limited in the number of teenagers, it will support at once. For the Splash Academy for my eight-year-old, we utilized it a few times however, since we booked some up only dinners prior to the cruise, it was awkward finding out that the program is not running for drop -off during those timeslots, so we ended up bringing the kids to our date night. Because the schedule of splash Academy isn’t available until after embarkation, I’m taking away one star as a result. I don’t if it was related to staffing issues or just regular scheduling, but it makes it awkward to handle for adults only.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

We loved our room steward, Michael. He only took care of our room amazingly, but he also improved on the bottom bunk towel that my youngest insisted on. Bonus points for that. we also loved the wait staff at most restaurants. They are very considerate of peoples requests. (I do realize that asking for allergies is probably a company requirement, but it was great to see even though we don’t have any.). We had amazing experiences with the waiters at both Reservations needed restaurants we went to. At one they accommodated our request to move outside and then inside when the sun got too hot (so sorry about that). At the restaurant, they treated my eight-year-old like a queen when she had very strict requirements for her cheeseburger and brought her a napkin that she enjoyed feeding french fries to. Finally extra stars to Michael and the plumber that had to take apart our sink because my oldest dropped her earring into it. Not only were they able to handle it very quickly (thank you housekeeping!), but Michael ensured It wouldn’t get lost again by putting the found earring into a cup away from the sink.

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

The ship was SO clean. Went out early in the morning I would routinely see staff cleaning top of signs, top of elevator jambs, etc. Our room was also kept very clean, as were all public areas. The layout is your standard Norwegian ship, my husband even commented on it, even though this is a slightly smaller ship than the previous one we sailed (the Escape, in 2019, to Bermuda from NY).

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

My Only concerned about the cabins - very much narrower on the Getaway. On the Escape, in 2019, The closets were against the Adjoining walls of the cabins (so touching walls between the cabins), while here, it was Perpendicular, against the inner wall of the bathroom. As a result, it was very difficult to use because it was directly against the couch that unfolded into a bed with barely any room squeeze in. Additionally, due to the rooms dimensions, there was no dresser as such a drawers, only very, very narrow shelves built into the walls, making it hard to fully unpack and use packing cubes in drawers as I usually would have. As a result of the narrowness, it was also a little bit hard to get to different parts of the room and onto the balcony. No, that none of us are overly large people so it wasn’t a size factor on our side. We also squeezed our luggage under the bed so that was great to remove extra clutter. Cleanliness was amazing thanks to our room steward.

Ship tip

Two things that I was very disappointed with were the Internet package that we purchased and the talk/text add on for the NCL app. We paid for the ultra premium package so that my husband could use some work on his laptop while we were on the trip. We bought the package for two people, myself and him, for one device each, planning to share as needed. Even if only one of us was on the ship Wi-Fi, his connection kept dropping constantly, there were server issues, etc. when not working, we were rarely able to stream anything, and I wasn’t even able to connect my iPad to the ship Wi-Fi, because the sign on website was not reachable Weather from our cabin or from a public area. Internet managers are only available at odd hours, so we weren’t able to reach them when we were either on a shore excursion or scheduled dinner. For the talk/text add-on, at about 10 bucks per person for the voyage, we routinely could not contact each other because of server issues because service could not be reached, etc. text messages with going on delivered for hours or even overnight, which is an uncomfortable feeling when you have a teenager that’s staying out late with the kids program. I will be requesting the return of those fees since it was so regularly disappointing for all four of us. What is surprising is that we have none of these issues in 2019 on our previous Norwegian cruise lines trip on the escape. It seems like service quality has deteriorated in the five years, which is very disappointing.

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